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From the editor: Make a change, not just a resolution

By Amanda L. Bradford / Healthy U editor

Posted:
01/02/2013 01:00:00 AM MST

It's January. The New Year. The time to start out with the best of intentions — we like to call them "New Year's Resolutions" to make them sound extremely important and official. Often, they have to do with our health, whether it's our physical health, our weight (by far the most popular resolution topic) or our mental and emotional health.

The moment you make a resolution, the little voice in your head goes to work compiling the list of excuses that will creep its way into your January routine, leaving you decidedly irresolute come Groundhog Day. Or am I alone in that?

And if you don't make a resolution for yourself, you get the knowing nod from the people who ask about it — "Ah," they're saying to themselves, "I see you've given up enough times to not even try anymore."

So how, as the editor of a health magazine, can I justify my anti-resolution attitude and still give you good advice? By changing the way I — and I hope, you — think about your health this year.

We're thinking beyond January, and beyond resolutions (special thanks to S. Derrickson Moore for developing the theme for this issue). We're throwing out the idea of a resolution that you either succeed or fail at. Instead, we're giving you advice from local experts on a few things you can do to improve every area of your life this year.

Some are easy. Some will require a little more commitment. But nobody's grading you on how many you implement. Or when you try them.

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If you find some inspiration here and make a positive change in your life — even a small one — then it's a victory for you and for us.
No resolution needed.